FOR THE ROMANTICS OUT THERE
by Contessa Lawson
Summary: Serena went on a holiday to mend a broken heart. It was broken by Alain, an actor who promised her heaven and earth but gave her hell when he admitted that he was married. She was whisked off to Darien's castle. Darien who was her stepsister Rei's ex-beau


AND THEN AN ANGEL LOVED ME

Dear Readers,

The story upon which this fic is based is quite… long. Actually, I haven't finished reading it yet. I just sort of … leaped into the last part.

I posted it because as I browsed through the novel, I found it romantically interwoven with Naoko's SM, with lines from the character that I intend to act as Darien saying that he does not believe in love, nor is he in search of the Holy grail or something like that… and then totally contradicting himself in the end.

I digress…

There are just so many references in the story that reminds me of SM… when I was fourteen years old and eager to go home to watch this favorite anime series of mine. Of course, you might not find some of those references here as this is only the ending. My! How odd that sound… they usually say the beginning, right?

So you must forgive me because I could only give a very basic synopsis for you guys to understand the gist of the fic. I trust you people to have a very vivid imagination so… use it. :-p

When I find the time to edit this story, I might decide to put it up. It's a little outdated for SM, I think. The Shakespearean language is throttling me and I'm not sure if it would suit your taste. Also, it's been a while since I was at school and the 'romantic lines' from the original story are way, way too cheesy… and too deep ? for me actually, I don't like it because the lines are said between Sere and the other guy, whom until now is still undecided…

This time I would use Alain decided… nyaha! as the other guy. Remember Alain? Or Allan? From the R series? Yeah, he was quite smitten with Sere… well, to continue… Well, let's just pretend that he's overly handsome…

You must notice that stories published under my name are somewhat fixated on the Darien-Serena-Raye triangle. I'm sorry about this but this seems to be the motivation upon which I could work and finish my fics and the not-so-mine fics.

If you want me to involve Beryl or Ann or Amy or Mina or Lita or Saori even… please email me. I'll try to outgrow my shell.

And you would forgive the lack of research, won't you?

Also, these 'projects' are costing me money sobsobsob. Could you people find a sponsor out there for me so I could finish some of these soon? :-)

Well, off to the summary.

SUMMARY:

Serena White agreed to accompany her friend Michelle in a holiday with the intention to mend her very own shattered heart. It was broken by Alain, an actor, who promised her heaven and earth… and gave her hell by confessing that he was married. She was ready to accept him despite that but then he had an accident and when he woke up, he could not even remember her, much less the magical times they spent together. So she let the winds sail her and Michelle to Darien's chateau, live in his castle and eat at his table though she didn't like him. She didn't know him much, except that he was one of Raye's admirers before her stepsister got married. He seemed to be more interested in Michelle anyway. Besides, why should she concern herself about him when Alain was back, his memory restored and his status now free to marry her?

SECOND TO THE LAST

THE roar of the incoming tide, the great swell of the waves, the crash as they climbed the rocks and broke in a great scatter of spray. This was the music of the chateau of Silver Millennium, the heartbeat of it, and Serena never went down to the shore without remembering the boy who long ago had hunted here for shells and thought the rocks like knights at their vigil.

It was strange, as if no matter where she ran she would never escape him. And when she listened to the waves she seemed to hear his voice. 'Do you think I don't get frightened, dear nymph? Do you think I want the pain of saying good-bye to you?'

But there had been no pain for him when he had said good-bye to her... he had said it to a stranger, and now all this ocean separated them.

She ran along the shore pursued by bird calls. She mustn't think about anything but this holiday, which had taken such a strange turn. Not only was she a guest at the chateau, but each day she posed for the figure of Undine, and to her relief Darien allowed Michelle to be present at the sittings. It was much like, sitting for an artist, except that he worked in clay, using his mobile fingers to shape her features and the contours of her slim figure reclining on a rock brought up from the beach to the courtyard of his studio.

There had been the question of what to wear. Though Pierre Maury had salvaged most of their belongings, Darien had found her dresses too up-to-date and said she must wear something that clung softly to her figure and had the look of sea mist floating around her.

It was upon his orders that Lucien carried a large sandalwood box down from one of the attics, and when it was opened both girls caught their breath in surprise and delight. It was full of silken things that would have pulled through a gold ring.

Serena felt compelled to look at Darien, tall by the mantelpiece, a cigar between his teeth, and he half-smiled and made her wonder if there had been a special girl in his life, someone exquisite, on whom such lovely Eastern silks would look stunning.

'There was a planter on one of the coffee islands,' he said, smoke drifting upwards past the glints in his eyes. 'He ordered a trousseau for his bride-to-be, but when we arrived at the island in the Aphrodite one of the plantation houseboys came running on board to tell me not to unload the cargo ordered by his master. His girl had written to say she was marrying someone else; she couldn't face life on an island after all. Somehow the sandalwood box and ifs contents remained on the Aphrodite until I sailed her home to Cornwall. You should find something there, Serena, to wear for me.'

She flushed at the way he put it and knelt by the box of silks, into which Michelle was delving with all the carelessness of a child. She didn't understand how sad it really was that a lonely man should want to lavish so much loveliness on a girl, only to receive a cool letter saying she didn't care enough to share his island.

'Isn't this gorgeous?' Michelle had draped herself in a shimmering length of sea-green silk.

'That isn't the way to wear a sari.' Cigar clenched in his teeth, Darien took hold of Michelle and with a couple of deft movements of his hands he draped the silk correctly. 'There, now you look as pretty as a temple dancer.'

Michelle smiled and danced around the room, her gay young reflection caught and held a dozen times in the gilded mirrors of the salon. 'Wouldn't you like me to model for you?' she asked.

'You wouldn't sit still long enough. I'd finish up with a blob of something looking four ways at once, with legs and arms all over the place.' He drew lazily on his cigar.

"Wait till you're grown up and have a little more repose.'

'Like Serena?' Michelle shot a took of mischief at her young chaperone, who with her switch of hair to her waist was admiring a length of gossamer tulle.

'I could make a sort of Greek dress with this,' she said. 'Isn't it a beautiful colour, like a silvery grey cloud with tinges of pink and flame?'

Darien didn't say anything and she glanced at him for his reaction. Her heart gave a funny little leap, for his eyes were so intensely alive in his craggy face, like two blue flames burning her as he studied her from across the room. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. Perhaps that she wouldn't look half so attractive as the girls who danced in the courtyards of Eastern pagodas.

He smiled lazily. 'Yes, wear that. Make the dress so it has panels of odd lengths, to give the effect of rags and tatters. Undine was a waif of the seashore, in love with a prince from the castle. She shouldn't look too sophisticated ... somehow enchantment has a sort of innocence about it. Those who possess the real thing are often unaware of the fact.'

'I like the story of Undine ... it seems to suit Serena.' Michelle set the radiogram in motion and a lovely piece by Debussy put an end to conversation until it died softly away. Darien then rang for Lucien and told him to bring a bottle of wine to the salon. 'It isn't often I have guests and we should celebrate the occasion,' he said.

Lucien nodded and smiled at Michelle in her sea-green drapery. He looked pleased that his 'maître' was being entertained by his young lady guests.

It would be lonely here a good deal of the time, Serena realized. The chateau was remote from other houses, and Darien had said himself that he had lost contact with the people he had known in his youth. He had sailed away to distant shores when he was nineteen, and for a long time the chateau had stood empty, unlived in by the stranger who had bought it. Out of the blue Darien had returned to Cornwall, rich enough to buy back the family home, a sea trading merchant with his friends scattered across the Indies. Planters and sea captains. Men of adventure like himself ... whom he might rejoin if the chateau remained for him but a lonely house on a cliff top.

But this evening there was music. The lamps were alight and the lonely sea and the moors were shut out by long brocade curtains. Soon Lucien returned with the wine and the cobwebs around the neck of the bottle made it appear as if it had been in the cellar since the wild old smuggling days.

'Don't wrinkle your nose,' Darien said to Michelle, as he poured the wine into a carafe of fine glass, with the tiny faces of fauns, and tiny grapes and leaves etched in a tracery of silver. 'Wine is all the better for being mature, and this batch was put down in my grandfather's time, straight out of a French vineyard. The Shields were county in those days. My grandmother used to give large parties and the banquet table in the dining-room used to seat a hundred people. They'd dance all night, breakfast on eggs, bacon and champagne, and then ride out across the moors to whip up an appetite for more dining and dancing.'

'It must have been super, with all the chandeliers aglow, and musicians playing up in the gallery.' Michelle's eyes were shining. 'Couldn't you revive it all, Darien?'

He shook his head, but for a moment Serena seemed to glimpse a wistfulness in his eyes, as if he had hoped for some return of the old happy days. But Raye had rejected him, and Serena had now seen the portrait of his grandmother in the morning-room where she used to write her letters and her party invitations. A smiling, pert-faced creature, with a mass of fair hair and huge blue eyes, jewels glinting against her creamy neck, she was the woman who had made a large hole in the Shields fortune. Her son - Darien's father - had inherited her love of a good time and company, and in the end the chateau and the family jewels had gone to pay off his gambling debts. His son had had to buy back his inheritance.

He poured the wine into small glasses that matched the carafe and handed one to each of the girls. Michelle was thrilled. 'May I say the toast?' she asked him. 'Please let me!'

'Of course you may.' He gave her a bow that revealed his Breton blood. 'I rarely have company, and two such pretty guests have a crusty seaman at their command.'

'I don't think you're a bit crusty,' Michelle protested. 'You're as gallant as that Darien of long ago.'

'You're very charming to say so.' He smiled, but he was not teasing Michelle. There was no devilish glint in his eye; no wicked arch to his eyebrow. His gaze was gentle as it dwelt upon the green-black hair of his younger guest, a leggy schoolgirl as yet, but who in a year or two would be grown up enough to turn a man's head with her green-eyed smile. As the daughter of his friend she would often come here; as a man lonely for company he would welcome her.

Serena was a little shocked by her thoughts, yet they persisted. Michelle made no secret of her fondness for him, and he wouldn't be the first mature man to take a girl-bride. 'And now that toast before the bubbles go out of the wine,' he said to her.

Michelle gave him a curtsy. 'Wine was meant to be, or there would be no grapes on the vines. Love was meant to be, or there would be no women. There!'

This time he did quirk his left eyebrow, and then he raised his wine glass, first to Michelle, and more slowly to Serena, his eyes brilliant, daring, holding for her a little spark of mockery and not a hint of the gentleness he showed the younger girl. She sipped her wine and turned to study a collection of rare objects he had brought back from his travels and kept in a treasure table. Pieces of jade of unusual colours, a tiny pagoda carved from ivory, an idol with jewelled eyes, and amulets inscribed with tiny letters.

She glanced at her scarab ring with the tiny lettering under the wing ... instead of happiness it seemed as if the ring had brought only misfortune. It was as if some spell lay upon it ... was it possible that a thing so charming could be unlucky.

'Admiring my jade?'

She gave a start as Darien came to her side. 'Yes - it's very beautiful, and I had no idea it was so vari-coloured.'

'These things are very evocative. They remind me of river festivals and flower boats, of gongs and temple ruins, and pools of golden carp.' He opened the glass top of the table and lifted from its bed a spray of cherry-blossom carved from jade, translucent and delicate as a breath of air. 'This is many years old. Do you see, it has a clip at the back so it can be worn in the hair. Cherry-blossom was the flower of love at the old courts of China, and this pin might have been worn by a Mandarin's sweetheart as she fluttered about him, bringing his tea, soothing him with an ivory fan, or listening at his feet as he read verses to her.'

Serena glanced at him, for he always surprised her when he talked like this, revealing his love of delicate trifles and his knowledge of old traditions. 'Do you wish women were still like that?' she asked.

'Obedient to a man's every whim?' he drawled. 'It would be rather pleasant to have a loving slave, but I prefer frankly a girl with spirit who enjoys the fireworks of an argument. Who gives me hell ... and promises heaven.' _would you believe, I wrote the summary before I saw this?_

He replaced the jade, and took from the case a pair of fine chains with a little gold Buddha attached to each one. 'Please accept this as a keepsake.' He dropped one of the chains into Serena's hand, then he strolled across to Michelle and fastened the companion chain around her wrist. He did it gallantly, while Serena stood alone by the table with her fingers clenching slowly on the little Buddha - god of repose and reflection.

'Oh, Darien, it's lovely!' Michelle flung her arms about his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss his lean brown cheek.

'You're my favourite man ... please wait for me to grow up, or I shall go into a nunnery!'

He laughed as she toyed with the wrist-chain. 'When you are older, Michelle, I shall remind you of this evening and you'll laugh to remember the young girl who pledged herself to a nunnery. By then you'll have all you dream of.'

'Do dreams come true?' she asked him wistfully.

'For the young in heart, my gilly, and sometimes for those who know the need for love because they've never had it. And now it's time for you and Serena to trot off to bed.'

'Already?' she protested.

'It's past ten o'clock and you look sleepy.' He glanced at Serena and a smile lingered at the corner of his mouth though his eyes were a trifle sombre. 'Do you both sleep well under the roof of the chateau? You mustn't let our ghost worry you. According to legend he only haunts a Shields, and I occupy the rooms where he's said to wander. He's just a lonely exile, rather like myself.'

'But Cornwall is your home-'

'Cornwall is where I was born, but no place is home unless the heart is there. And now I'll bid you both goodnight - if you'd like some hot milk I'll tell Lucien to bring it up to you.'

Michelle wrinkled her nose. 'Hot milk reminds me of school!'

'Heaven forbid!' He was now lighting one of his thin cigars, as if he meant to smoke alone in the salon or to take a stroll as far as the walled garden where the night air would be redolent of the rambling roses.

'Thank you for the keepsake,' said Serena awkwardly.

'You're welcome.' His eyes seemed to hold teasing glints through the smoke of his cigar. 'It's said to bring good fortune to a house to give of its treasures to a stranger - do you feel a stranger still ?'

She didn't know how to reply to him. There had been too many times in her life when she had felt the outsider, and a look, a gesture could reawaken the feeling. Giving her a trinket had been but a gesture. She hadn't wanted him to fasten it about her wrist, yet the cool manner of his giving had reminded her vividly of the days of her adolescence, when Raye had been made so much more of; when a gift to herself had been but a tiresome duty so far as her stepfather was concerned.

She wanted nothing from anyone, if it could not be given freely, but already she had thanked Darien for the trinket, and the firm jut of his chin was always a warning not to tangle with him unless you were well prepared for the fight. Tonight she felt curiously defenceless, and when he took a sudden step close to her she felt as if her knees would give way.

'What's the matter?' he demanded in a low voice. 'Have I done something to hurt you? Surely not, Serena. You're immune from what I can inflict on you. I'm just that tiresome Cornishman with the odd ability to read your mind. I know right now what you're thinking.'

'You can't know!'

'But I do know, Serena. You're thinking about Raye's Queendom and the humility you were taught there. Always to take a back seat, to sit in the shadows and watch the drama and desire of other people's lives. Then you found a little drama of your own, but the curtain came down on it, and right now you're feeling hurt and rebellious. You don't want to sit out in the cold any more ... you want to be loved, don't you, Serena?'

'How dare you?' She fought the strange weakness in her legs and backed away from his tall figure and his dark face, his eyes narrowed speculatively against the smoke of his cigar. 'Michelle, I'm off to bed! Are you coming?'

'I was just having another peek in the bride's box. Serena, will you make me a dress out of some of this gorgeous silk?'

'Yes, my dear, tomorrow.'

'Good night, Serena,' Darien said deliberately. 'Sweet dreams.'

'I-' She wanted to protest that she hated him ... it was shocking to be so transparent to a man, as if she had no secret that was safe from him.

'Don't say it,' he drawled. 'You might regret it.'

'You're incorrigible!' She tossed her head, turned on her heel and marched out of the room. She was halfway up the stairs before Michelle caught up with her.

'You've been quarrelling with him again," the younger girl accused. 'I don't know how you can!'

'It's easy,' said Serena. 'He's the most presumptuous devil I've ever had the misfortune to meet. He's been a ship's captain so long that he thinks he can boss everyone as he did his long-suffering crew. Poor men! They must have thought they had Captain Bligh on board!'

Michelle giggled, 'You're funny, Serena.'

'I'm glad you appreciate my humour, only I'm not being funny on purpose. The sooner Rock Haven is set to rights the better I shall like it. We can then pack up and leave this place - and that man.'

'He was kind enough to give us a bangle each. I love mine, with its little gold idol. I shall wear it in bed.' Michelle admired her wrist-chain. 'He was going to give me a ring, but I expect he'll save it for when I'm older. It's very significant for a man to give a girl a ring - though I've heard that in Spain a bangle is a love token. It would be a thrill if Darien meant one of us for his future bride.'

With deliberation Serena dropped her own chain on the dressing-table. The tiny idol gleamed in the lamplight, reminding her that anger was foolish and that reflection brought wisdom. Oh, but the man was so-annoying ... not even Raye with her pointed remarks could arouse the spitfire in Serena as did that tall devil with eyes so blue and deep it was like drowning in them when he looked at her.

Her mind was made up; as soon as Miranda brought word that the cottage was fit to live in again, she and Michelle would pack their belongings and leave the chateau. But in the meantime she had to make the best of a situation she found tense and disturbing.

As she undressed she became aware that Michelle had gone to bed in her own room tonight, though she had left the communicating door ajar. 'Good night, Michelle,' she called out. 'Sleep well.'

'Good night,' Michelle mumbled,

Serena sighed and slipped into her own enormous bed. How did you explain to the young that antagonisms were as natural as affections; that try as she might she couldn't feel at ease with Darien Shields? He made her feel untried and unworldly, as if her love for Alain had been but a step into womanhood instead of the most profound happening in her life. She had nothing tolling to if she couldn't believe that Alain had loved her in return. His dear nymph, sharing with him those sunlit hours on the river Avon.

When she switched out the lamp her fingers came in contact with the little idol, and she made a vow. She would try to be friends with Darien. There were times when she found him interesting, especially when he talked about the arts and crafts of the Eastern lands and revealed the side of him that was cultured, even rather gentle.

She was smiling a little as she drifted off to sleep ... gentle was perhaps a word to smile at when applied to the master of the chateau.

When sittings for Undine were over for the day, the two girls were free to enjoy the chateau and its surroundings. They discovered a hard tennis court in spanking condition and played for fun, until their host came along and challenged them to a game. He took on the pair of them and had such a swift forearm swing with the racquet that he had them diving about the court until they were laughingly exhausted and had to be revived with tall cool drinks.

The jingle was also at their command, and Darien often drove them to see the romantic haunts of Cornwall. They visited the castle ruins of Tintagel, where whispers of the old legends seemed to linger in the air and where at twilight the old ghosts might wander, the swirling of waves around the sharp dark rocks that guarded the ancient ruins.

They saw the little church of the six virtues, and Serena noticed the smile hovering about Darien's lips as they studied the figures in the stained glass window. 'Who would you choose?' she asked unexpectedly.

'Hope,' he said. 'She must surely possess all the other virtues.'

'Faith and charity,' Serena murmured. 'Justice, praise and joy. A woman like that would have to be an angel. I'm sure you don't expect to find for yourself an angel, Mr. Shields.'

'The name is Darien.'

'Darien,' she said obediently.

He gazed down at her in the spangling of coloured light from the window. 'Don't you think an angel would have me?'

'If she loved you.' Then Serena drew away from him and went to look at the stone knight who had caught Michelle's attention.

As they drove around the countryside, they were noticed by the people who lived in the moorland cottages. Curtains twitched at the tiny windows and curious eyes watched them go jingling by. Everyone knew that the roving Shields had returned, maybe to settle down and take a bride. Would it be one of the young ladies with long, wind-blown hair ... it wasn't quite right for them to be sharing a house with a bachelor, but there had always been a dash of the devil in the Shields men!

Speculation was in the wind, carrying across the moors from one cottage to another, and if some of the curiosity reached Darien, he revealed it only in the deepset twinkle in his eyes.

They drove over the moors to Dozemary Pool, more of a tarn with its still water and the ravens cawing in the stillness. The legend said that from here King Arthur had been rowed to Avalon, the final resting place of Celtic chieftains. Here his great sword had sunk with a last flash of lightning beneath the water of the tarn, and only the ravens and the reeds made any sound as the two girls stood there, awestruck, with Darien.

'Come!' He took each girl around the waist and the trio hastened away from the haunted pool and scrambled into the jingle with laughter and relief.

'Your Cornwall is very eerie in places,' said Michelle.

'Aye, it's a subtle place with a beauty altogether strange. It's the lover of the sea, whose sons are at once masters of the waves and yet the ocean's loving slaves. You must both come sailing with me in the Halcyone, the small sloop I keep in the bay under the chateau cliffs. She sails like a witch.'

'I was hoping you'd ask us to go sailing with you.'

'Were you, my gilly?' He whistled the pony to a trot and as the jingle carried them over the moorland road the wind tousled Darien's black hair and stung the girls' cheeks with colour. The sky overhead was a wide arch of silvery blue, and here and there on the moors stood wind-bent trees and splashes of Cornish balm and gold-tipped gorse.

Yes, thought Serena, this land's beauty was wild and un-tameable, and the subtle charm of the people captivated you before you were aware. The sea was always within sound, beyond a ridge of cliffs, or caught as in a frame at the bottom of a hilly road, its salty tang mingling with the scents of gorse and balm.

Beauty ... and at the same time danger, for more than one ship had broken her back upon the rocks of this coastline, where the luring song of a mermaid seemed to echo in the wind.

Constantine Bay was a picturesque place with its sand towans, and there Darien told their fortunes in the sand, using his whip-handle and telling them such absurd things that their laughter startled the gulls, the pretty beggars of the scraps left from their lunch of meat pasties.

'Tamarisks.' His eyes were upon them as they swayed in the sea breeze. 'They remind me of the tropics, of walls so sunlit that they took each shadow and etched it into a picture.'

'I believe you would like to go back there and be a lotus-eater, like Gauguin.' Michelle sat near to him, with her knees encircled by her arms.

'He wasn't that entirely, Michelle. He was a primitive, seeking truth beyond the sophistications we have come to regard as necessary. He struck through to the roots of longing deep inside each one of us and created an art almost childlike and yet at the same time as old as creation. He painted people stripped of their finery, which in the end only becomes cobwebs.'

Serena listened as she stood with her feet in the surf, she watched an oyster-catcher flying low over the water, and she felt again that if Darien found nothing to hold him to his hard-won heritage he would return to those islands that lay like jewels beyond her reach. She could only imagine their wonder and their peace.

'Look.' He was on his feet in a single supple movement. 'A seal grooming itself on that rock out there!'

'Isn't there a legend that mermaids turn themselves into seals?' Serena turned her head to look at him, and as his blue eyes flashed over her, taking in her wind-tangled, surf-wet figure, a tingle as from a magnetic charge seemed to run through her. This was a man who had lived on pagan islands and she had a vivid mental picture of him plucking a girl out of the surf - laughing, joyous - and carrying her to a thatched house on stilts.

'You look a mermaid yourself with your dress clinging to your knees, and your hair like a tail."

'Thanks for the compliment!'

'I'm not being funny.' His drawl was strangely soft. 'Mermaids are creatures of allurement, and sailors are said to be more susceptible to their strange appeal than other men.'

Serena didn't know what to make of that remark, but she wanted to look away from him - casually - as if she didn't notice how the sea and the sun combined to bring out all that was primitively attractive in the man. His skin was brown in the neck opening of his shirt, and black was his hair, like iron, and broad were the shoulders that had never bowed beneath the tough burdens his life had imposed upon him.

It came as a relief when with a loud splash the seal dived off its perch and swam underwater with a swiftness no human being could match. 'The mermaid is off to her undersea palace,' Serena laughed, a trifle breathlessly.

'To meet Prince Huldebrand.' Michelle gave a pirouette, her bright hair streaming out from her shoulders. 'This is turning out to be the best holiday I've ever had. Can we go to Camelford tomorrow, where King Arthur had his palace?'

'Anything you wish, my gilly.' Darien smiled and there was a deep blue light in his eyes that matched the brilliance of the sea ... the two blues burned together.

'You're a super man!' Then in a fit of shyness Michelle bent to pick up a convoluted shell, only to drop it the next instant as something wriggled out of it. It was a tiny crab, scuttling over the sands and diverting Serena's attention to a pathetic huddle of grey feathers, up near one of the small caves in the cliffside. She went towards it and saw a gull crouched there as if in hiding with a broken wing. Knowing gulls to be notoriously cruel towards injured members of their family, Serena hurried over to this one to see what she could do to help.

As she was reaching up to the opening, the bird stirred out of its apathy, became alarmed and stabbed at her with its sharp beak.

'Serena - ' Strong hands seized hold of her, lifted her from the rock on to which she had climbed and set her firmly on the sand.

'That poor bird - it's hurt!'

'I can see that, and I can get hold of it without having an eye pecked out.' All the same Darien got his wrist gashed as he caught and subdued the gull, which cried like a cat as he carried it to the jingle.

'We'll take it home and Lucien will set the wing. He knows all about wild things ... we once carried an injured pelican on board the Aphrodite. And another time a baby elephant, which hurt its trunk and had to wear a large bandage on it.'

He held the gull securely, and Serena took the reins of the pony and drove the jingle home to the chateau. Michelle wanted to hear more about the elephant, a gift from a Thai merchant which they had to give to a zoo when it grew too cumbersome to remain a permanent member of the Aphrodite's crew. 'A pity, that,' Darien smiled. 'He was a great help when it came to unloading cargo.'

As soon as they reached home Lucien took charge of the gull, and Serena suggested that she attend to the gash on Darien's wrist. It was quite deep and could turn nasty, having come from a wild bird.

'There's a first-aid kit in my studio,' he said, and she walked ahead of him up the winding stairs. Michelle had gone off with Lucien to watch the more interesting operation. The studio was dusky in the late afternoon light and Darien switched on a lamp and took the kit from a cupboard. He sat on the high stool which he used for his bench modelling, and Serena was intensely conscious of him as she held his wrist and cleaned the cut with antiseptic. He made no murmur, though it must have stung, and for some odd reason she was the one who winced. She glanced up at him, and he quirked his lip in the lopsided smile she was never quite sure of.

'You have a cool and compassionate touch,' he murmured. 'Have you ever thought of becoming a nurse?'

'Andrew asked me the same thing.' She applied antiseptic plaster to the cut and pressed it gently in place, the strip of pink looking delicate against his-sun-weathered skin. 'Do you think I ought to go in for a career? Maybe nursing might be the answer when this holiday is over and I return to London. Perhaps I could train at the hospital where Andrew operates. I have the feeling he'd like me to-'

'Are you fond of him? Girls are said to be susceptible to medical men.'

'As sailors are to mermaids?' She was smiling, and then her breath caught in her throat as Darien closed his hands about her waist and pulled her against him. His face looked hard, his eyes were glinting, and a stray lock of hair on his forehead added to his air of recklessness.

'Shall I thank you in the traditional way, Serena?' His voice was dangerously soft. 'With a kiss after comfort?'

LAST PART

HER heart was pounding as she tried to pull away from him, but his hold was too strong to break. She was like a willow caught by the wind ... like foam tossed on a wave ... drowning in the sea-blue eyes as he bent to her and his lips caressed her neck to her earlobe, and took from her lips her whisper of protest.

The tang of the sea was on his lips, and she seemed to hear the lash and roar of the tide. In the storm that was his kiss, she was helpless to do anything but submit to him, and when it was over she was as shocked as a Victorian miss kissed against her will. Her reaction was equal to her sense of outrage - she struck at him with her fist and caught him a blow across the cheek.

He laughed ... laughed and held her, his hair tousled on his brow, his eyes shimmering a flamy blue behind his smoky lashes.

'Who are you trying to punish, me or yourself?' he taunted.

'I hate you!'

'What, for waking you out of the dream into which you fell when Harris touched you? Did you really think his kisses so unique that you'd never respond to any other man-even to me?'

'You forced that kiss upon me!'

'And you liked it! You don't yet know yourself, Serena White, let alone what makes a man. You don't want someone who bends the knee being gallant and tragic. You won't admit it, but the kiss taken is sometimes a lot sweeter than the kiss given. Who wants it to be tame and gift-wrapped? No real woman, and certainly no man with a bit of vitality in him.'

'No!' she flung back at him. 'What you want is a plaything. You're used to girls who think of love as a mere dalliance, like plucking a papaya from a tree, or taking a swim in a lagoon, but this isn't a tropical island and I'm not a papaya girl!'

He gave her that sardonic half-smile of his. 'You've got me all figured out, haven't you? The sea-rover who for the past fifteen years has lived and loved wherever his fancy took him. In some respects you are right, but in all my years of travelling I never left a broken heart behind me when I sailed away on the Aphrodite. Being no saint, I yet have not been quite a satyr.'

He let her go and walked over to the table on which he kept a few decanters and glasses. A glass stopper clinked in the ensuing quiet, and then she saw, through the moist mist of half-strange tears, that he was pouring wine into a couple of the glasses. He returned to her side, his fingers looped about the stems. 'This will settle your shaken nerves,' he said mockingly. 'I guess it isn't every day that you get kissed so thoroughly by a man you can't stand.'

'Wine - in the afternoon?'

'There's no set time for any sort of pleasure, Serena.' He held out one of the glasses in which the wine had a ruby tint. 'I'm a Shields, remember. My grandmother used to drink champagne at breakfast.'

'I believe you take after her.'

'Do you?' His smile was enigmatical. 'Because she pleased herself and did as she fancied all her life?'

"You know what you want and you set out to possess it - as you repossessed the chateau and old treasures belonging to your family.'

'I'm an obstinate man, but I know there is a limit to what I can claim and what I can win.' As he spoke he handed her one of the glasses, and the stem was warm from his touch. 'There's a dream I have, but being a Celt I know that certain things are in the hands of destiny and I can't force her hand.'

'You told me that dreams were not as satisfying as realities.'

'They aren't, Serena, if they have to remain dreams.' He drank some of his wine. 'Perhaps you and I are doomed to it, tied to the mast of a dream ship we can never bring to harbour. I want to reach out for what I long for, but for the first time in my life I'm afraid. I think I would sooner keep half my dream than lose all of it, and I wouldn't have made such a compromise when I was younger. I'd have said "to the devil" and taken what I wanted. Tomorrow wouldn't have mattered to me.'

'Because you had the Aphrodite to sail away on?'

'I still have the Aphrodite. I may still sail away, taking but half a dream as my cargo.'

He tossed back his wine and brooded over the Persian puzzle that lay on his work bench, moving with lean fingers the ivory and ebony squares. 'Life is composed of lights and shades; of a daytime and a night-time. We can't snatch daylight out of the night sky, we can only wait for the dawn and hope it will be a shining one.'

He swung his glance to meet hers. 'Laugh, Serena! You have heard Shields being sentimental and profound.'

But she didn't feel like laughing. Cradling her wine glass, she walked to a window that overlooked the sea, where the sun had faded away and misty violet shadows were creeping inland to enfold the chateau. How lonely it must be in the wintertime, and how cold then the sea for a man from the tropics.

She glanced at him as he removed the damp muslin from the half-finished figure of Undine. He met her wondering eyes. 'Would you like to pose for half an hour? I might as well try and get this finished before the roof of the cottage is mended and you return to Pencarne.'

'I - I'm not in costume.'

'You'll do as you are ... please sit for me on that leather hassock.'

She took the pose that now came naturally to her, her profile outlined by, the flow of her hair, a waiting look about the slim line of her body. It helped her to sustain the pose if she allowed her thoughts to wander, and upon this occasion they wandered to Raye's Queendom, to her stepsister Raye, who had beauty but was hardly the fragile figure of a man's dream. If Darien had really wanted her, he could so easily have taken her away from Jed Roberts... but he hadn't bothered.

'He just wants someone to share the chateau with him,' Raye had said. 'Anyone will do ... even you, Serena.'

Raye for once had been wrong about a man. Darien was in love with a woman and uncertain of her. If he couldn't have her, he meant to sail away on the Aphrodite. Who was she, this dream girl he dared not treat lightly?

'All right, Galatea,' his voice seemed to come from a distance, 'you can relax now and go and get your dinner.'

She gave a little shiver and realized she was cold. Her left foot was numb as she stood up, and a sudden gust of wind launched itself against the walls and windows of the tower.

'It sounds as if a blow is getting up.' He veiled Undine in her clinging muslin and left her like a ghost in the studio. Lower down on the gallery they could hear the waves battering the cliffs, and from a window they saw the intermittent flash of the lighthouse that stood some miles beyond the long curve of the bay. A lonely sentinel guiding the ships past the rocks.

'What does it feel like,' Serena asked, 'to be on a ship with a tempest blowing?'

'Frightening, but with an edge of excitement to it that makes one realize how good it is to be alive when the danger is past. The Aphrodite once rode out a typhoon that left her battered and becalmed off a small island I mapped and would like to revisit, some day. It was as if we had to go through those hours of hell in order to find that small paradise. If we'd seen it on an ordinary tropical morning, we'd have probably sailed past and forgotten it.'

'Then you believe that only in danger, or grief, or from being hurt, that we come alive to the wonder of being alive?'

'You have it in a nutshell, Serena. How can there be a great love, for instance, unless we've known a lesser love? One that seemed to offer heaven while it lasted, but gave only a glimpse of the real thing. You can't be a ship's captain until you've been a sailor. You can't fall completely in love until you've fallen half-way.'

She looked at him, compelled by his eyes, drawn into them. 'What are you saying - ?'

'You know very well what I'm saying.'

She knew, and she didn't want to hear any more, she didn't wait to listen, and upon reaching her room she closed the door hastily behind her, as if to shut him out. But he hadn't pursued her. Only his words had done so, and they wouldn't be silenced as the wind grew rougher and the waves sounded as if they were clawing their way to the chateau.

The gale increased in force as Serena and Michelle ate dinner together. Darien didn't join them, and Claudine looked curiously grim as she served their pudding. They lingered awhile in the salon, but each gust of wind shook the windows and made them jumpy. 'Let's go to bed,' said Serena, and they fled across the hall like a pair of half-frightened children. The door of Darien's study was firmly closed, and there was no sign of Lucien. A clock chimed. It was half-past ten, and not a night to be on the moors, or the sea. '

Serena was sleeping restlessly when long wails of distress awoke her. She sat up sharply and realized that they were coming from outside in the gale-lashed night. Someone flung open her door. 'Serena, are you awake?' Michelle stood breathlessly in the doorway. 'I went down to find out what that fearful noise was, and Claudine told me a ship had gone on the rocks. Darien and Lucien have gone off to help. Isn't it awful! People might be drowned!'

Serena got quickly out of bed and began to fling on her clothes. Michelle switched on the lamp and stared at her. 'You look as though you've been crying,' she said.

'Let's go down. Those sirens sound close by and it's more than likely rescued passengers will be brought here to the chateau and we'll help Claudine make sandwiches and beds.'

These words acted like a spur and the next instant the two girls were racing downstairs to take their orders from Claudine, who was calm and practical and as a fisherman's daughter accustomed to these sudden disasters. When the seas were rough, she said, a ship could be swept into trouble in a matter of minutes, but the men of the lifeboat team would do their utmost and there would be few casualties if those Cornish lads had their way.

By midnight Michelle had fallen asleep, worn out on the sofa in the salon, but Serena and Claudine were still busy in the kitchen, where a large pan of soup was simmering, along with pots of coffee. The table was loaded with meat and egg sandwiches, and as many beds as possible had been made up in readiness.

It wouldn't be long now before passengers off the ship began to straggle up the cliffs to the lighted comfort of the chateau. A couple of men had been up from the shore to say that the ship was a privately owned vessel from America, which had been heading for port when she had got herself snarled up on the rocks off Silver Millennium. There was damage to her side and she was listing, but the lifeboat had now taken off her passengers and was heading back with them. The lifeboat would then return to the ship to take off the crew.

Serena and Claudine exchanged a grave look, for in another hour or so the damaged ship would be half under water and it would be a dangerous task to land her crew. 'Have a mug of tea, lass.'

Serena took it gratefully and stood by the great fire drinking it, nervously alert, and trying not to let her imagination picture the high waves sweeping over the sloping decks of the ship, her sea-wet passengers now huddled together on the rescue boat that had to make its way around the cruel rocks to reach the shore, and safety.

They arrived half an hour later, a cold, shivering bunch of people, clutching a few belongings and weeping a little after their ordeal.

As they were ushered into the great warm kitchen, Serena was ready with coffee, blankets, and a warm word of comfort. There was a couple of children whom she quickly stripped, towelled down, and tucked into a bed comfy with hot-water bottles. She fed them with onion soup and left them sound asleep, returning at once to the kitchen where a refreshed Michelle was handing out food and asking eager questions.

Everyone was eager to talk now they were safe on dry land and under the strong roof of the chateau. Serena heard all they were saying in a kind of dream, in which she didn't cease for a moment to offer hand and heart to their troubles. One woman had lost her pearls; another was deeply concerned for a fellow passenger who had stayed with the crew for fear of overloading the rescue boat.

'He just wouldn't leave that sinking ship, honey. He said he'd wait for the return of the lifeboat, and that he was sure the good Lord would see to it that everyone was saved.'

'He sounds very brave,' said Serena, folding a blanket closely about the woman's shoulders. 'Would you like another cup of coffee, or a rum toddy ?'

'Coffee, my dear.' A ringed hand caught at Serena's. 'You Britishers come right out of your shells when other folks have got trouble, don't you? That boy on the ship ... he's English and the most charming creature. If anything happens to him, I shall be cut to the heart. Why, if I were thirty years younger-'

She winked, but had dozed off in her armchair before Serena could pour out her coffee.

By half-past two the rescued people had been bedded down for the night, and the kitchen had grown quiet, with an air of waiting. Michelle yawned on a stool in front of the fire, but couldn't be persuaded to go to her own bed. 'I must wait up,' she said drowsily. 'I must see Darien and be sure he's all right.'

'Mr. Darien will be right as ninepence,' said Claudine. 'He's a seaman all through, and it's my belief that he pines to be back behind the helm. He's a Shields from the old days, when the men of this family were as rugged as my own two brothers, both of whom were out with their boat when the soldiers were brought off the beaches at Dunkirk. What a sight that was, to see the hundreds of little boats returning at dawn with those poor tired lads. We wept and we cheered - ah, I'm getting old, Miss Serena, and I dwell on my memories, but it's good to have them, if a bit sad.'

Serena listened to the wind and the pounding of the seas, and tonight her own memories seemed extra poignant. She gave a nervous start as the clock chimed and she counted the three strokes. The tide would be high and the lifeboat would have a struggle to bring those men ashore. Oh God, let them be safe, she prayed. Captain and crew, the lifeboat team, and that man who stayed with the sailors.

The wind had fallen and the first pale shadows of dawn were patching the sky when the sound of voices broke on the stillness ... male voices, hearty with relief, some of them laughing, and yet with a weariness underneath.

A few minutes more and the kitchen was humming with activity and redolent of wet clothing, the smell of the sea, and hot rum toddy. All was bustle and confusion as tall men clustered around the fire and took great bites out of man-sized sandwiches and gulped down the warming soup and coffee and hot sweet tea.

Serena handed out blankets and searched the flock of men for Shields himself. He wasn't to be seen, but over by the door one of the rescued men caught her eye and she gave a strangled little cry of recognition. He was lifting a coffee mug to his lips and he saw her at exactly the same moment.

'Serena!'

'Alain!'

She couldn't believe in the reality of him until she had pushed through the crowd of men and was actually touching his arm, and then clutching his hand. 'It was you!' she gasped. 'You stayed on board with the crew!'

'Yes,' he laughed. 'Serena, this is unbelievable. You are real?'

'Of course.' He was the Alain of their very first meeting, his green eyes brilliant in his handsome face, aware of her, remembering all and every moment of their friendship, up until the time the lightning had struck her from his memory for painful weeks.

'You recognize me,' she exclaimed.

'From the moment I saw you, a nymph among all those tousled sailors.'

'You didn't know me, Alain, after your accident at the theatre.'

'That was the strangest thing, but just now it all flashed back to me. Serena - dear nymph."

'I'm so glad you're all right, and safe. It must have been awful, down there in the water. Alain, I'll get you a blanket-'

'No,' he caught and held her back. 'I'm not too wet at all. Stay a moment more. Tell me what you're doing here - this is the house of Darien Shields.'

'Yes - he was with the lifeboat crew. Did you see him?'

'Yes. Big dark chap doing the work of three men getting us off that tipsy ship. She had keeled right over when the Captain left her. I expect Shields is with Captain Lake right now. There were coastguards down on the beach, and several officials, and he seems himself to be the nabob of Silver Millennium.'

She smiled a little. 'He's just Shields, and other people seem to lean on his strength and all that he knows about sea craft. I - I'm glad he's all right.'

'You haven't told me what you're doing here in Cornwall.'

'I'm holiday companion to Michelle - she's over there ladling out soup for that young sailor. Alain,' her eyes searched his, 'I heard you had gone to America. Mr. Dubois told Darien-'

'Darien?' he said whimsically.-'You were looking very pale and tense until I told you he was safe. You used not to like the man. He was your stepsister's beau, wasn't he?'

'No.' She was shaken by her own emphatic denial. 'She was only a distraction - just as I was.'

'You, Serena?'

'Yes,' and she could even smile as she added, 'for you.'

'That isn't true,' he protested. 'We found so many things we both liked. Whenever we met it was like a holiday. Whenever we kissed it was as if the sun came out.'

'But love is a storm,' she heard herself saying, 'not just half a day's sunshine. Love is knowing that roses fade as well as bloom, and I think we wanted no more than those sunny hours on the river. We never looked beyond them.'

'We couldn't, not at that time.'

She looked into his eyes and saw a sadness steal into them. She guessed, then, why he had returned from America.

He nodded. 'My wife died very quietly, and it was a release for both of us. She could never have got well.'

'I'm so sorry, Alain.'

'But, Serena, we can go to Rome. I asked you once before and you said you'd come and keep me company.'

'A holiday companion?' Her smile was curiously mature in that moment, and she saw beyond the attraction he had had for her at Raye's Queendom and beyond the lonely girl she had been at that time. He was so handsome, but now she knew that the prince had kissed her only half awake.

'You must be hungry,' she said. 'I'll tell Claudine you'd like some soup, or sandwiches.'

'Serena-'

But she had turned away, and when she reached Claudine at the table she said to her: 'That nice-looking man by the door would like something to eat - I'm taking a flask of soup down to the shore. Mr. Shields is there and he'll be cold and famished.'

Claudine gave her such a warm look. 'I was that worried about him and was about to ask someone to take him a bite of food and something to drink. There's some cold fowl in the larder, Miss Serena.'

'Put it between bread and add some pickles.' They smiled like conspirators. I'll go and put my raincoat on.'

'Yes, wrap up. It's a drear morning and misty it'll be down on the shore.'

The gale of the night had died right away, but the dawn had brought mist with it and through the haze the wailing of the seabirds had a desolate sound. Serena's raspberry-red coat was a splash of colour on the path leading down to the shore, and the trees were rather like ghosts.

There was an oak tree at the bend of the path, where on a bright morning it was good to stand and take in the sea view. Serena had just reached the tree when something moved, and she gave a startled little cry. A tall figure emerged from the other side of the ancient trunk, dispelling the illusion that he was a spirit of the dawn.

They stood looking at one another, with the tails of mist twining around them. The mist was on his hair and it was unruly and very black. Beads of moisture clung to his cheekbones, and his eyes were intensely blue, like chinks of sky peeping through the early morning haze.

When he didn't speak, she held up the basket of chicken sandwiches and flask of hot coffee. She had decided that he would welcome a cup of coffee. 'I brought you something to take away the chills.'

'You brought yourself,' he said, in that voice that went dangerously soft whenever he spoke to her alone. 'I thought you'd be cosily chatting about old times with a certain friend of yours. Quite a surprise - for both of us - that he was aboard the Vesta.'

'Has she gone right down, Darien?'

'Yes. Nice little craft as well, but the rocks of Silver Millennium are dangerous and they bit her in the side. She slowly flooded.'

'It was a miracle that her passengers and crew were saved.'

'A miracle for you, Serena?'

'For me?'

'Alain Harris was among them.'

'I know.' She approached him under the tree. 'Shall I pour you a cup of coffee? It's strong and sweet, the way you like it.'

"You're being very nice to me,' he said whimsically. 'Grateful that I helped save your boyfriend?'

'Don't-'

'You're always saying don't to me. What did you say to him?'

'That I was so glad he was all right - Darien!' She cried out and dropped the food basket as strong, hurting hands took hold of her and crushed her against the oak tree, a prisoner in a red raincoat, her misty hair clinging like golden leaves around her temples and her slender neck. 'Darien-'

'So it's glad you are that he's safe and well, and when, may I ask, do the pair of you leave for Rome? I take it his memory is restored and you'll take up where you left off?'

'If you don't leave off bullying me-' Suddenly the strain of the night was taking its toll and tears filled Serena's eyes. 'I was so worried - all night - even when there was so much to do - and now you're being mocking and cruel.'

'Worried - about me ?'

'Yes, is it so hard to believe?'

'You'd worry about a fly on the hob.' And then he fell silent and his blue eyes were roving her face, taking in each contour, each feature, especially the tears that crept down her cheeks until one of them disappeared inside her dimple. "You odd child, laughing and crying, and down here with me instead of up there with Harris.'

'Yes, isn't it crazy? Why do I bother to bring you coffee when he's so handsome and gallant - and no longer a married man?'

'Is that a fact?' Darien's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Well, it looks as if you'll be taking him coffee from now on. I suppose this morning is just a bit of goodwill, because I helped to save him for you?'

'Brute!'

'Do you think he'd miss a kiss from the bride-to-be? All heroes get kissed.'

'Devil!'

He laughed - laughed and held her, there beneath the great misty canopy of the oak tree, and when he kissed her it wasn't anything but stormy heaven. All she felt was the touch of his lips on hers, warm and vital and tangy from the sea. She forgot everything else, even the dream girl about whom he had spoken in his studio last night.

'Serena,' it was like the surf murmuring her name, 'you'd better not tell Harris about that kiss.'

'I never shall,' she murmured. 'He'll be leaving the chateau quite early, I think. I expect he has to be in Rome quite soon.'

'Where you'll be joining him?'

'No. I shall be here in Cornwall, companion to Michelle, model for Undine.' She drew back a little and looked into Darien's blue eyes. 'Who is she, the girl you can't have, who might send you sailing away with half a dream as cargo? I feel I'd like to know.'

'Maybe you have a right to know.' He stroked from her wondering eyes a silver blonde strand of hair. 'She's quite a bit younger than the leathery sinner who loves her. She has a heart that shines in her eyes, and a mouth that's like a rose to kiss. She has a tender spirit, and also a fighting one, and the second time I saw her I came close to carrying her off with me to my lonely chateau. I don't know why I didn't, but at that time she couldn't see the moon for the stars in her eyes, and I wanted her to love me.'

He paused, and then said softly, 'If she couldn't love me of her own free will, then the Aphrodite was always ready and waiting. If you can't love me, Serena. I'll sail away with half a dream.'

'Me?' she whispered.

'Yes, from the moment you gave toe the cold shoulder in the foyer of the Mask Theatre, all eagerness to get to your seat to see the entrance of your princely actor.'

'But you came to Raye's Queendom to see my stepsister.'

'I came to see a girl called Serena. Your stepfather talked about you, and I was intrigued by your name and I wondered if it could belong to a girl equally rare and lovely. Serena,' a smile slashed his brown cheek, 'as a Celt you're supposed to have second sight. Couldn't you tell that I cared?'

'You were never as kind to me as you are to Michelle.'

'Michelle is a child, and a man isn't kind to the woman he loves - he's so full of wanting that he can't be anything but a little cruel. If you only knew, Serena. If you only cared-'

'I do care!'

The world was blue in an instant, no clouds, no mist, no harsh waves pounding the shore. A ray of sun broke through from the east, and the birds began to wheel about with cheerful cries.

'This morning when I saw Alain it made me happy to see he was safe and well - but it made me come alive all through my body to hear that you were unhurt. Darien, it isn't possible to love greatly until we have loved romantically. Alain was my romance ... you are my love.' somehow, I'm afraid to put this up as it may end up in debate… love, romance, romantic love, love-love

His eyes were brilliant when she revealed at last what he had waited to hear. With a vibrant tenderness he enfolded her in his arms, and her hair blew against his cheek as they stood together and watched the sun arise. The day would be a shining one, and the years ahead for both of them would be lonely no more.

'Darien,' she murmured, 'your coffee will get cold.'


End file.
